Can drones replace bees

Can drones replace bees

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Arthur Erickson is co-founder of Hylio Agro Drones, a company that develops and manufactures agri drones in the U.S. Since he told me that his technology could actually pollinate crops, I had a question: Could your drones take over for bees in the event of the total collapse of the bee population? Bees are great at what they do and drones are great… as an aside because they are much better at controlling drifts. So you're going to have a lot less dangerous drift of chemicals to damage these bees and other parts of the ecosystem with drone. So that's one point. But yes, drones can be used to fill in the role of bees here when it comes to pollination as an example. We've done some strain for a company down in Texas where we're based called rice tech, and they've got male rice rows and female rice rows. And a simple way to pollinate the female rice is to simply fly over the male rice rose with the down wash of the drones and that wind kicking up is actually just going to pollinate, send it over to the female rose. So there's already easy ways to do pollination with drones. Furthermore, you can put a granular spreader on a drone, so people use that for spreading seeds. But you can also put dust like pollen material in there and literally go out and spot pollinate trees or bushes or whatever you need to use in the drone technology as well. Very flexible. It can fill in the role of bees. I hope it doesn't have to. I want bees to stick around, but it can't fill in those gaps. Speaker1: And with increasing evidence of colony collapse disorder of bees worldwide, those words, while dire, should offer some comfort.
Previous ReportManure applications
Next ReportKids and farming